Kelly Stone v. Hayden Stone

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided April 18, 2025·No. 03-23-00801-CV·Published

Opinion

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

NO. 03-23-00801-CV

Kelly Stone, Appellant

v.

Hayden Stone, Appellee

FROM THE 453RD DISTRICT COURT OF HAYS COUNTY NO. 11-0363, THE HONORABLE SHERRI TIBBE, JUDGE PRESIDING

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Kelly Stone appeals the trial court’s modification of custody of her two children.

Under the final divorce decree, Kelly and the children’s father, appellee Hayden Stone, were appointed joint managing conservators. 1 Kelly was appointed the joint managing conservator with the exclusive right to designate the children’s primary residence within Hays County, Texas, and any counties contiguous to it. Hayden was granted possession and access under the standard possession order. See Tex. Fam. Code §§ 153.111-.317.

After Kelly was accepted to a PhD program in Portugal, she filed a motion for enforcement and modification, seeking to enforce the passport provision in the decree and to remove the geographic restriction. Hayden filed a counterpetition seeking to be named sole managing conservator; in the alternative, seeking to be appointed the joint managing conservator with the exclusive right to designate the children’s primary residence; and under either type of

1 Because the parties share the same last name, we refer to them by their first names.

conservatorship, seeking to have Kelly’s possession and access supervised. After a hearing and after the trial court met with the children, who were ages 14 and 16 at the time, the trial court signed an order naming the parties joint managing conservators and awarding Hayden the exclusive right to designate the children’s primary residence within Hays County; all counties contiguous to Hays County; and Nixon, Texas.

The order makes no provision for Kelly to have any scheduled possession and access to the children. Instead, the trial court left the time for possession and access to be agreed by the parties, and it prohibited Kelly and Hayden from filing contempt charges against each other for failing to follow “the Court-ordered possession order, if the children do not wish to spend time with the other parent for a period of possession.”

Because we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion by imposing a more severe restriction on Kelly’s possession and access of the children than required to protect the children’s best interest, we reverse and remand with instructions to the trial court to devise a custody order that provides specific times and conditions for Kelly to have possession and access.

BACKGROUND

According to Kelly’s brief and corroborated by the appellate record, the trial court signed the final decree of divorce on January 20, 2012.2 On July 27, 2022, when the children were 13 and 14, Kelly filed a motion for enforcement and modification. In the motion, Kelly requested that the trial court enforce the passport provision in the final divorce decree, alleging

2 When, as here, an appellee does not file a brief, the appellate court may accept any factual statement made in the appellant’s brief and supported by the record as true. See Tex. R. App. P. 38.1(g) (“In a civil case, the court will accept as true the facts stated [in the appellant’s brief] unless another party contradicts them. The statement must be supported by record references.”).

that she had attempted to get Hayden’s consent for issuance of passports for the children and that Hayden had refused to provide consent or good cause for withholding that consent.

The passport provision ordered, among other things, that “if a parent’s consent is required for the issuance of a passport, that parent shall provide that consent in writing no later than ten days after receipt of the consent documents, unless the parent has good cause for withholding that consent.” The divorce decree also established the following: (1) “either parent shall have the right to maintain possession of any passports of the children, . . . subject to the requirements for delivery of the passports and all other requirements set forth below”; (2) “[e]ither parent is ordered to deliver or cause to be delivered to the other parent” the children’s passports within ten days of receipt of the other parent’s notice of intent to have the children travel outside the United States during the other parent’s period of possession; (3) specific requirements for the type of written notice that a conservator is required to provide to the other conservator of intent for the children to travel outside the United States during the conservator’s period of possession; (4) the conservator must furnish this written notice “no less than twenty-one days before the intended day of departure of the children from the United States”; (5) each conservator is “ordered to properly execute the written consent form (attached [to the decree]) and any other form required . . . and, within ten days of that conservator’s receipt of the consent form, to deliver the form to the conservator providing the written notice”; and (6) “any conservator who violates the terms and conditions of these provisions regarding the children’s passports shall be liable for all costs incurred due to that person’s noncompliance with these provisions,” including attorneys’ fees, among other costs.

Kelly sought to hold Hayden in contempt and to recover attorneys’ fees for filing the motion to enforce. Kelly moved to modify the final divorce decree’s geographic restriction

by removing it, alleging that the circumstances of a conservator had materially and substantially changed. She requested that the trial court make orders for the conservatorship of the children if the parties could not reach a written agreement on provisions modifying the possession of, access to, and support of the children.

On August 10, 2022, Hayden filed an answer to the enforcement motion. In his answer, he alleged that the order sought to be enforced was ambiguous and not clear and specific enough for him to know what duties or obligations are required. He further alleged that Kelly filed the motion in bad faith because she was attempting to remove the children from the United States to relocate to Portugal.3 Kelly then moved for temporary orders on August 17, 2022. Kelly explained that she had been accepted to a PhD program in Portugal and that despite her “best efforts at amicably resolving this matter before filing suit, the parties have been unable to come to agreement on passport provisions or a temporary schedule regarding possession and access of their two children.” Kelly requested that the trial court (1) order a temporary possession-and- access schedule for her with the children that the court finds is in their best interest while Kelly continues her education; (2) include in the order provisions for international travel and to specify exchanges of the children; (3) order reasonable periods of electronic communication between the children and Kelly to supplement Kelly’s periods of possession of the children; and (4) order Hayden to provide consent for issuance of a passport for each child, to execute a written consent

3 Hayden filed a certificate of conference with the trial court on August 24, 2022. The certificate of conference summarized the parties’ counsel’s discussion at a settlement conference and identified the issues remaining for the trial court to determine at a September 6, 2022 hearing. The certificate refers to Hayden’s August 23, 2022 Counterpetition to Modify Parent-Child Relationship, Request for Temporary Restraining Order, Request for Temporary Orders and Permanent Injunction. However, this pleading is not included in the clerk’s record filed in this appeal.

form to travel abroad, and to execute any other documents required for international travel. An associate judge orally denied Kelly’s requests for a temporary possession-and-access schedule and for a method for Kelly to secure the children’s passports.

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Kelly Stone v. Hayden Stone, (Tex. Ct. App. 2025).

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